New and Creative Leniency for Overdue Library Books

Reprinted from NY Times:

CHICAGO — In the Illinois towns of Joliet and Palos Park, the economic downturn has pushed the public libraries into the grocery business, of sorts. Patrons with overdue books and hefty outstanding fines were recently given a way to clear their records: Donate canned goods or other groceries through the library to local shelters and food pantries.
Dozens of library patrons in both towns jumped at the opportunity.
In Colorado, despite a multimillion-dollar deficit, the Denver Public Library has practically done away with fixed-rate fines. Now librarians there are free to negotiate a fee structure that feels fair to them based on individual cases, or to charge nothing at all.
Since the beginning of the economic downturn, librarians across the country have speculated that fines for overdue items are keeping people from using the library — particularly large families whose children take out (and forget to return) many books at a time. Some libraries learned that the fines, which are often as low as 25 cents an item per day, quickly multiplied for many people and were becoming an added hardship.
“We can’t push the cost to consumers because they’re also struggling,” said Richard Sosa, the finance director of the Denver system, which has $9 million worth of books in circulation through 23 libraries and two bookmobiles. “The library philosophy is: We do not want to restrict access to information. The use of fines or harsh collection tactics — and we could potentially do that — could essentially restrict people’s access to the library.”
And another thing: They need their books back.
As a result, libraries have been instituting amnesty days and weeks with increasing frequency this year, and offering programs such as “food for fines.” In Joliet, about 60 miles southwest of here, the program went well beyond groceries, and benefited a local social service agency that serves the needy.
Read the entire article>>>

Book sales in 2009 - not that bad it seems

Republished from LA Times blog:

Publishing has been hit hard this year: There have been bookstore closings across the country, big layoffs at publishing houses, warnings that the business model can't survive, the looming challenge of e-readers such as the Kindle and e-books. Yet with numbers out that cover book sales for 2009 through Dec. 20, it appears that despite all this bad news, people still like to buy books.

Crain's reports that Neilsen BookScan, which reports on about 75% of industry sales, suggests that sales numbers could have been much worse. The area that did the best was the important category of adult fiction -- it has held steady since last year, with 208 million books sold. Taken on their own, sales of hardcover fiction were up 3%.

Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol," the long-awaited follow-up to the mega-bestseller "The DaVinci Code," was part of the good news. The novel was the year's top seller.

Paperbacks in fiction were mixed -- trade paperback sales were up by 2%, but mass-market paperbacks, which have been struggling, were down.

Overall, the year's tallies have book sales down about 3% overall. That's because adult nonfiction did not perform well -- sales were down by 7% since last year.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Ready for the "Nook"? Uh, not quite sure it's ready for us.

David Pogue, tech-guy extraordinaire gives the thumbs down to Barnes & Noble's entry into the e-book reader market, The Nook. Never mind that these devices sold out early in the holiday season. I recently gave one a whirl with decidedly poor results. Try before you buy at a local store. You'll find the screen refresh as the pages change leaves much to be desired.
Pogue says. "And in the electronics business, Greed-Borne Insanity is contagious.
That’s when electronics executives, blinded by dollar signs on their corneas, rush a product to market before it’s ready."
I agree!
Read the entire review in the NY Times article here>>>

Dr. Suess won the bet!

Dr. Suess editor, Bennett Cerf, bet him $50 that he could not write a book with a vocabulary of only 50 words.

Suess won by penning "Green Eggs and Ham."

For more of these interesting bits from authors see the Chicago Tribune slideshow here>>>

Author Ann Patchett (writer of Bel Canto) makes writing her "job"

As a freelance writer, one doesn't have to sit and write for 8 hours a day. It IS a job, writers insist, as they walk out the door in the middle of the day to go to a movie or meet a friend for lunch and shopping. But, studies show more actual hours writing do produce more actual pages written. Imagine!

In this article from the Washington Post, Patchett explains how she changed her focus and now keeps at it during the day when other more pressing matters seem constantly at hand, well, at least for 32 days.

More>>>

New Sherlock Holmes movie reverts to original text's characters' characteristics

Readers of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional character, the brilliant London-based detective, in the more than 50 short stories and 4 novels will delight in the new film version which shows both Holmes and his friend, Watson, as Doyle portrayed them - that of companions and intellectual equals - not the bumbling Watson and the snide Holmes most movie watchers are familiar with from the characters of the films from the 1940's. The new movie starring Robert Downing, Jr. and Jude Law manages to evoke a feeling of smart and witty fun while the "detecting" ensues in a fast-paced action.
Getting good reviews all around.

Most stolen book? Surprisingly, it's the Bible

In her essay for the NY Times, writer Margo Rabb notes when she asked Steve Bercu, BookPeople’s owner, what the most frequently stolen title was.
“The Bible,” he said, without pausing.
Apparently the thieves have not yet read the “Thou shalt not steal” part.

Read the entire article>>> 

Cute video! Wizard of Oz at the Library

Originally presented at the 2007 ALA Conference in Washington DC. A simple tale about library circulation. Presented by Salt Lake County Library. 

Watch

Even Bradbury couldn't keep Ventura Library from closing

Tight money is regrettably not science fiction. Even the author Ray Bradbury put up a fight, but it was not enough to save the H. P. Wright Library in Ventura, Calif.

The library, like so many around the country, had fallen on hard times as city and state budgets tightened. Mr. Bradbury, a fierce advocate for public libraries, appeared at a fund-raiser last June aimed at helping to save the ailing branch. While that helped the library hang on for a bit, the long-term picture was bleak, and a recent bond measure that would have helped close a $650,000 deficit sunk.

The library’s final day on Nov. 30 was met with a candlelight vigil. “Needless to say, they put up a good fight,” said Sydney Weisman, a spokeswoman for the San Buenaventura Friends of the Library, which tried to keep the library afloat. New York Times reports.

More at The Ventura County Reporter Online

Hear more author interviews: Sara Paretsky

Listen to audio of author interviews from Donna Seaman, an associate editor at Booklist for the American Library Assn. She's also a frequest reviewer for the Chicago Tribune, the LA Times, and others.

She says, "Books compete with the machine media -- television, movies, video games, the Internet -- for our time and attention, yet they hold their own because books are intimate, nourishing, and resonant. Reading books stimulates the imagination, renews our love for the subtleties of language, forges bonds between past and present, links us to diverse peoples and all of living creation, and illuminates with singular clarity one of the universe’s greatest mysteries, how other people’s minds work. Off-the-grid objects of great sensuous, emotional, and intellectual pleasure, books mesh story and ideas. To read is to lose and find one’s self and the world. Reading is a form of listening, and literature is a grand and transcendent conversation. Our hope is that by opening books, hearts, and minds, you will help keep this rich and essential tradition alive and thriving."


I agree!
Listen to some interviews with authors now>>>

Book returned to Ohio library after 60 years

TOLEDO, Ohio — A book has been mailed back to an Ohio library after six decades, accompanied by an anonymous letter of remorse.

The biography "Napoleon" by Emil Ludwig recently arrived at Toledo's main library, with a brief note that read: "I removed this book from your stacks in 1949 and did not check it out. I apologize. It's an excellent book and in good condition."

The person who signed it "An ex-Toledoan" also wrote, "Carrying guilt for 60 years is a terrible thing."

Library spokeswoman Rhonda Sewell says the package, with its Beverly Hills, Calif., postmark, came as a shock. She says the holiday season may have moved the sender to right a longtime wrong.

Circulation clerk Harry Johnston speculates the book was taken by a high school student in a hurry.

On this day: Mark Twain spoke to Congress

December 7: On this day in 1906, Mark Twain spoke in Washington before a Congressional Committee on patents, arguing for a proposed bill establishing copyright at life + fifty years. Other eminent authors and musicians spoke - John Philip Sousa, for example - but Twain, just turned seventy-one and an advocate of copyright law for decades, got all the attention. This was due to his fame, his entertainment value and his white suit - the debut of the iconic garb which Twain wore over his remaining three-and-a-half-years. "Nothing could have been more dramatic," wrote William Dean Howells, "than the gesture with which he flung off his long loose overcoat, and stood forth in white from his feet to the crown of his silvery head." Given the next day's New York Timesheadline, "MT in White Amuses Congressmen," the new suit may have been counter-productive to the copyright cause - or perhaps just counter to earlier statements:

We must put up with our clothes as they are - they have their reason for existing. They are on us to expose us - to advertise what we wear them to conceal. They are a sign; a sign of insincerity; a sign of suppressed vanity; a pretense that we desire gorgeous colors and the graces of harmony and form; and we put them on to propagate that lie and back it up.   (from Twain's Following the Equator, a collection of travel pieces published in 1897)

Tips for Growing Bookworms: Make Sure Your Children Have Books of their Own

We all know that reading can inspire, educate, and transport one to different lands and encourage imagination and creative thinking in everyone. It's best to start 'em young and make life-long reading a habit they'll come to love.

Great article from PBS: Inspire a love of reading in your child with help from these children's book experts.

NY Times picks for best of 2009

Topping the list of the Fiction best books of 2009 is Both Ways Is The Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy. This book is among many of the "best books of 2009" lists that are popping up everywhere just now. I've heard this book is very good, the author writes in a concise clearness without sentimentality. Hmm.

For the entire list>>>

Study: Amazon has fewer bugs than Walmart.com; Target.com

Amazon beats out other online book retailers. According to the study Amazon's website is easier to navigate and has fewer problems.
Read more from USA Today.

Funny comic from the SF Chronicle

A Christmas Rewrite, as Dickens Edits Dickens

I re-read this classic last year and was throughly delighted. Hard to believe Dickens simply dashed this off in a quick moment. In the picture above young visitors to the Morgan Library view the marked up manuscript.

From the NY Times: It is an enduring mystery of English literature: What secrets lie entombed beneath the thick scribbles that Charles Dickens made as he wrote, and rewrote, the 66 pages of “A Christmas Carol” in 1843?

The manuscript of this classic holiday ghost story, written in six weeks to raise much-needed cash, is housed at the Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan, where it bears all of Dickens’s additions and subtractions in his own hand.

On page 3, he inserts “his eyes sparkled” to amplify the portrait of Scrooge’s nephew, whose beneficence is crucial to the plot.

On page 12, where Scrooge takes Marley’s ghost to be evidence not of the supernatural, but of his own indigestion, (“more of gravy than of grave,”) he converts the offending bit of food from being a “spot of mustard” to a less digestible “blot of mustard.”

A CLOSE READING

Examine high resolution images of Dickens’s manuscript for yourself and discover additions and deletions he made to “A Christmas Carol” before sending it to the printer.

•  Examine the manuscript

•  See all 66 pages

Scholars, on occasion, have been given access to the manuscript, or facsimiles, to learn more about these shapings and shadings.

Read more in the NY Times article

"The Vintage Caper" by Peter Mayle

Feeling the doldrums of the fall- not quite the Holiday Season, yet the fun days of summer and travel to far-away lands  seems at best a distant memory? You're in luck if you care to get swept away to a place and characters of a completely different world (at least to most Americans), that of the village life in the South of France. If you've loved this author's books in the past, why not take a visit once again to the region with this tale, highlighting the cuisine, the wine, and the to put it politely, the interesting natures of the people which will have you exclaiming, "oh-those-French!"


See the L.A. Times review:
Peter Mayle, best known for his bestselling "A Year in Provence," has made a cottage industry of writing about Provence and the entire South of France, with copious references to delectable cuisine and coveted wine selections. After writing mostly nonfiction in recent years, he's enjoying a return to the whodunit form with "The Vintage Caper," providing Francophiles, foodies and wine lovers a fun way to indulge their passions while helping solve the case.

Colton closes all library branches

Colton city officials say they have no choice but to lay-off 60 full and part-time employees -- from animal control officers to police department clerks -- and the city plans to close three of its libraries.

"It's a fact we're seeing all over California. It's a victim of the economy and what's tragic is the library is being shut down," said Colton resident Brad Adkins.

Signs posted on locked doors at the Colton libraries are encouraging residents to call the City Council and protest.

Colton has a $5 million hole in its budget for the current fiscal year that's impacting every city department.
The cuts are expected to save $4 million in the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2010.

The city is leaving the door open to employee unions to accept a 15 percent pay cut to head off additional layoffs or reverse some of this week's actions.

Layoff notices were scheduled to be handed out Thursday. The city did not disclose when the layoffs will be effective or when the libraries will shut down.

Jane Austen - ever wonder why so many love her books? Find out in A Truth Universally Acknowledged: 33 Great Writers on Why We Read Jane Austen

For two centuries Austen has enthralled readers. Few other authors can claim as many fans or as much devotion. So why are we so fascinated with her novels? What is it about her prose that has made Jane Austen so universally beloved?
In essays culled from the last one hundred years of criticism juxtaposed with new pieces by some of today’s most popular novelists and essayists, Jane Austen’s writing is examined and discussed.Modern voices celebrate Austen’s amazing legacy with an equal amount of eloquence and enthusiasm. Fay Weldon reads Mansfield Park as an interpretation of Austen’s own struggle to be as “good” as Fanny Price. Anna Quindlen examines the enduring issues of social pressure and gender politics that make Pride and Prejudice as vital today as ever. Alain de Botton praises Mansfield Park for the way it turns Austen’s societal hierarchy on its head. Amy Bloom finds parallels between the world of Persuasion and Austen’s own life. And Amy Heckerling reveals how she transformed the characters of Emma into denizens of 1990s Beverly Hills for her comedy Clueless. From Harold Bloom to Martin Amis, Somerset Maugham to Jay McInerney, Eudora Welty to Margot Livesey, each writer here reflects on Austen’s place in both the literary canon and our cultural imagination. 
Or, perhaps, like me you regard Austen with just a bit more, well - to put it bluntly - annoyance. Don't worry Mark Twain apparently felt the same way when he famously stated, "Every time I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone."

"Alice In Wonderland" Inspires Bestselling Trilogy "The Looking Glass Wars"

Tomorrow is National Young Readers Day, an initiative to celebrate and encourage a love of reading in kids, and in honor of that, we bring you this interview with Frank Beddor, author of the popular young adult trilogy "The Looking Glass Wars," and most recently "ArchEnemy," the last book in the series.

The series is a retelling of Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" which includes the real Alice and Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) themselves as characters. In this re-imagining, Alice becomes Princess Alyss and wages a Civil War-like battle against Redd Heart, Beddor's name for Carroll's queen.

While the series hasn't had much traditional critical acclaim (a notable exception is a recent LA Times review that marveled at the many incarnations that Beddor has created for the series, including a spin-off comic series, a coffee-table book, and an upcoming movie), the blogging world has dug right in. A BlogCritics review, for example, finds the books as engaging for "old" adults as for young adults.

In this Good Morning America interview (click on link in red below), Beddor wows an audience of kids with his story and the beautiful antique "Alice in Wonderland" playing cards that started off his journey in the first place. You can read an excerpt from "ArchEnemy" on the Good Morning America website.

New York Public Library: Interesting tid-bits about items in the collection

The New York Public Library on Fifth Ave. in New York City houses many interesting artifacts. Only the Library of Congress and the British Library are larger. But even the Fifth Avenue landmark by itself is a marvel of big numbers. It is undergoing a $1.2 billion makeover in preparation for its 100th birthday. Built from 1899 to 1911, it cost $9 million, contains 530,000 cubic feet of white Vermont marble and 125 miles of shelving, and opened with an inventory of one million items. Here are some highlights of this fabled institution.

HEAVIEST BOOK A tie between “Michelangelo: La Dotta Mano,” a handmade coffee-table-size trophy, and John James Audubon's 1830s first edition of “Birds of America,” with its life-size raptors and flamingos. Both weigh about 61 pounds.

IN THE EVENT OF FIRE... Isaac Gewirtz, curator of the Berg Collection, which has 35,000 volumes of English and American literature, would save the 1605 handwritten manuscript that contains the most accurate transcriptions of John Donnes "Holy Sonnets."

CABINET OF CURIOSITIES Among the oddities at the library are Elizabeth Barrett Browning's slippers.

ANSWER ZONE The library began its telephone reference service in 1968; it is available online or by calling 917-ASK-NYPL (917-275-6975).
● How old is the moon? 4.72 billion years.
● Where was the toothbrush invented? China, in 1498.
● How often does the service receive questions? Every 10 seconds.

SADDEST ITEM In August 1820, a dying John Keats wrote a letter to his soul mate, Fanny Brawne, that begins with a fond salutation — “My dearest girl” — but goes quickly downhill. “I am glad there is such a thing as the grave,” he wrote. “The world is too brutal for me.” It ends with a romantic flourish: “I wish that I was either in your arms full of faith or that a thunderbolt would strike me.”

MOST FAITHFUL CUSTOMER Norbert Pearlroth, the head researcher for “Ripley's Believe It or Not,” visited the library almost daily. Although he wrote about the incredible, his own routine was anything but: He sat at the same table for 52 years, from 1923 to 1975.

READY FOR ITS CLOSE-UP The library has figured in dozens of films, including “Sex and the City”; “The Wiz”; “The Day After Tomorrow,” right; “Spider-Man”; and “Ghostbusters.”

THE FIORELLO LA GUARDIA IMPACT La Guardia, New York's loquacious Depression-era mayor, renamed the famous lions that guard the Fifth Avenue entrance. The mayor decided that Patience and Fortitude — survival qualities essential during a depression — made better sense than Lord Lenox and Lady Astor, especially since both lions are male.

THIS OLD HOUSE The writing on a cuneiform tablet dating from 2050 B.C. may document the oldest real estate transaction on record — the sale of a house in Sumeria.

MENU, PLEASE The library has 40,000 restaurant menus, the world's largest collection, dating from the 1850s to the present. It is heavily used by chefs, novelists and researchers; a few years ago, a marine biologist consulted menus from the early 1900s for a study of fish populations.

THANK YOU FOR SMOKING The Arents Tobacco Collection was assembled by George Arents, whose father was president of the American Tobacco Company. The only collection of its kind, it contains 15,000 books, all of them about or containing references to tobacco. “The Wizard of Oz” and “Alice in Wonderland” are included, but nothing by Shakespeare, who never mentioned tobacco or smoking.

IN THE EVENT OF FIRE...

MICHAEL INMAN, curator of rare books, would grab the only printed copy of a four-page letter Columbus wrote in 1493 about his discovery of and reaction to America.

ELIZABETH DENLINGER, curator of the Shelley Collection, was torn between the one-of-a-kind Esdaile Notebook, a manuscript of Shelley's early poetry, and William Blake's hand-engraved 1793 version of “The Songs of Innocence.”

ISAAC GEWIRTZ, curator of the Berg Collection, which has 35,000 volumes of English and American literature, would save the 1605 handwritten manuscript that contains the most accurate transcription of John Donne's “Holy Sonnets.”

FIRST BOOK LENT OUT “Ethical Ideas of Our Time,” a treatise on Nietzsche and Tolstoy, by N. I. Grot.

MOST SCANDALOUS BOOK A copy of the so-called Wicked Bible, printed in London in 1631. In it, the word “not” was omitted from the prohibition on adultery.

HEAVIEST BOOK A tie between “Michelangelo: La Dotta Mano,” a handmade coffee-table-size trophy, and John James Audubon's 1830s first edition of “Birds of America,” with its life-size raptors and flamingos. Both weigh about 61 pounds.

CABINET OF CURIOSITIES The most bizarre item, not counting those skull fragments from Percy Bysshe Shelley in Room 319, has to be Charles Dickens's favorite letter-opener. The shaft is ivory, but the handle is the embalmed paw of his beloved cat, Bob, toenails and all.

OTHER ODDITIES
● Truman Capote's cigarette case.
● The cane Virginia Woolf left on the riverbank the day she committed suicide.
● The original Winnie-the-Pooh.
● Hair from the heads of Charlotte Brontë, Walt Whitman, Mary Shelley and Wild Bill Hickok.
● Elizabeth Barrett Browning's slippers.

Barbara Kingsolver audio discussion on her new book, "The Lacuna"

Barbara Kingsolver, author of bestsellers "The Poisonwood Bible" and "The Bean Trees" discusses her new book "The Lacuna," how she came up with the name (and how her family felt about it) and her own recent relocation. Click on arrow below. For a good review of "The Lacuna" on the NY Times click here.

Publishers Weekly lists best of 2009

Year's best: Publishers Weekly today names its top 10 books of 2009:
1. Richard Holmes' The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science;
2. Dan Chaon's Await Your Reply;
3. Victor LaValle's Big Machine;
4. Blake Bailey's Cheever: A Life;
5. Neil Sheehan's A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon;
6. Daniyal Mueenuddin's In Other Rooms, Other Wonders;
7. Geoff Dyer's Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi;
8. David Grann's The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon;
9. Matthew Crawford's Shop Class as Soulcraft;
10.and David Small's Stitches: A Memoir.

I will be checking out Await Your Reply soon. If you've read any of the above, please comment on this post with your thoughts.

National Book Award Finalists announced

Here's a list of the finalists in the Fiction Category:
Bonnie Jo Campbell, American Salvage (Wayne State University Press)
Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin (Random House)
Daniyal Mueenuddin, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (W. W. Norton & Co.)
Jayne Anne Phillips, Lark and Termite (Alfred A. Knopf)
Marcel Theroux, Far North (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

The Winner in each of the four categories – Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry and People's Literature – will be announced at the 60th National Book Awards Benefit Dinner and Ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City on Wednesday, November 18.

More on the National Book Foundation website here>>>

How does the brain like e-books? Find out from the experts...

Writing and reading — from newspapers to novels, academic reports to gossip magazines — are migrating ever faster to digital screens, like laptops, Kindles and cellphones. Traditional book publishers are putting out “vooks,” which place videos in electronic text that can be read online or on an iPhone. Others are republishing old books in electronic form. And libraries, responding to demand, are offering more e-books for download.

Is there a difference in the way the brain takes in or absorbs information when it is presented electronically versus on paper? Does the reading experience change, from retention to comprehension, depending on the medium? Read on for various "expert" opinions.
More>>>

Libraries and Readers Wade Into Digital Lending

Reprinted from the NY Times by Michael C. Weimar

Kate Lambert recalls using her library card just once or twice throughout her childhood. Now, she uses it several times a month.

The lure? Electronic books she can download to her laptop. Beginning earlier this year, Ms. Lambert, a 19-year-old community college student in New Port Richey, Fla., borrowed volumes in the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” series, “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold and a vampire novel by Laurell K. Hamilton, without ever visiting an actual branch.

“I can just go online and type my library card number in and look through all the books that they have,” said Ms. Lambert, who usually downloads from the comfort of her bedroom. And, she added, “It’s all for free.”
Eager to attract digitally savvy patrons and capitalize on the growing popularity of electronic readers, public libraries across the country are expanding collections of books that reside on servers rather than shelves.

The idea is to capture borrowers who might not otherwise use the library, as well as to give existing customers the opportunity to try new formats.

“People still think of libraries as old dusty books on shelves, and it’s a perception we’re always trying to fight,” said Michael Colford, director of information technology at the Boston Public Library. “If we don’t provide this material for them, they are just going to stop using the library altogether.”

About 5,400 public libraries now offer e-books, as well as digitally downloadable audio books. The collections are still tiny compared with print troves. The New York Public Library, for example, has about 18,300 e-book titles, compared with 860,500 in circulating print titles, and purchases of digital books represent less than 1 percent of the library’s overall acquisition budget.

More>>>

Traveling with Pomegranates: A Mother-Daughter Story - by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor

Sue Monk Kidd and her daughter Ann were both at a crossroads in 1998--Sue was near menopause with a case of writer's block and Ann was a recent college grad with a case of depression. The two visited Greece, France, and Turkey, and in this dual-memoir, Kidd (who wrote The Secret Life of Bees after the trip) and her daughter each describe their introspective journeys and their relationships with each other. This fascinating book will provide food for thought for anyone who's at their own life intersection, especially mothers and daughters--and Bees fans will enjoy reading about that novel's early beginnings.

Huffington Post gets in the Book Club game with 1st selection: In Praise of Slowness

Take a deep breath and join the slowness movement!
Adriana Huffington of the popular blog The Huffington Post has started her own Book Club. The first Huffington Post Book Club pick is Carl Honoré's In Praise of Slowness. First published in 2004, it's an engaging exploration of the Slow Movement, and it encourages readers to take some time instead of speeding and multi-tasking through one stressful project to the next. A journalist, Honoré offers a detailed report of the Slow Movement's role in every aspect of life, from food to sex to relationships to work. The idea of slowing down isn't new, either. Great thinkers and writers have been talking about how important it is to take time for yourself and for reflection for a long time.


Read more about this book and quotes about slowing down and enjoying life more here

Herta Müller Wins Nobel Prize in Literature

Herta Müller, the Romanian-born German novelist and essayist who writes of the oppression of dictatorship in her native country and the unmoored existence of the political exile, won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday.
Relatively unknown outside her native country, you can read more about her here>>>

Tudors retelling wins Man Booker Prize

The prestigious Man Booker Prize has been awarded to Hilary Mantel for "Wolf Hall," her historical fiction of Henry VIII's court. Mantel was considered the odds-on favorite going into tonight's ceremony in London -- yes, the British do take bets on who will win a book prize -- and beat out shortlisted authors A.S. Byatt, J.M. Coetzee, Adam Foulds, Simon Mawer and Sarah Waters. In addition to the honor of winning the award, Mantel will receive $83,500.

"Wolf Hall," scheduled for U.S. release Oct. 13, is said to be a minutely researched yet sweeping historical novel of the Tudor period. Told from the perspective of Thomas Cromwell, the book follows the courtly machinations that keep Henry VIII in power as he breaks with Rome to marry Anne Boleyn.

Disney to introduce online books for kids

The Walt Disney Company hopes an ambitious new digital service it plans to unveil on Tuesday will transform how children read its storybooks. The image shown here is from Disney’s digital book Web site, which will offer electronic replicas of hundreds of books for $79.95 a year. In what it bills as an industry-defining moment — though rivals are sure to be skeptical about that — Disney Publishing plans to introduce a new subscription-based Web site. For $79.95 a year, families can access electronic replicas of hundreds of Disney books, from “Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too” to “Hannah Montana: Crush-tastic!”

DisneyDigitalBooks.com, which is aimed at children ages 3 to 12, is organized by reading level. In the “look and listen” section for beginning readers, the books will be read aloud by voice actors to accompanying music (with each word highlighted on the screen as it is spoken). Another area is dedicated to children who read on their own. Find an unfamiliar word? Click on it and a voice says it aloud. Chapter books for teenagers and trivia features round out the service.


More at the NY Times here>>>

If You Were "Literature Czar"...

Authors attending the National Book Festival 2009 discuss their plans and must-reads if they were to become "literature czar." Interviews conducted by Sam Litzinger. (John Johnston/The Washington Post)

Octavia Butler, Sci-Fi Award Winning Author, papers going to the Huntington Library

The papers of Octavia Butler, the stereotype-shattering science fiction writer, will be added to the collection in the Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif., which also houses the papers of Christopher Isherwood, Charles Bukowski and Jack London.

The Pasadena-born Butler, the daughter of a shoe-shiner and a maid, found her voice in science fiction when few women -- and fewer African Americans -- were writing in the genre. She won two Hugo awards, two Nebula awards and was the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur "Genius" grant.

More from LA Times blogs>>>

John Grisham: 'I tried literature and didn't like it much.'

Dan Brown, who was criticised by his fellow best-selling novelist Philip Pullman last week for his 'flat, stunted and ugly' prose, has won sympathy from John Grisham.

(Reprinted from The Telegraph UK
By Richard Eden)

"I know that what I do is not literature," says Grisham, who has sold more than 250 million copies of his legal thrillers such as The Pelican Brief and The Firm.

"For me, the essential component of fiction is plot. My objective is to get the reader to feel impelled to turn the pages as quickly as possible. If I want to achieve that, I can't allow myself the luxury of distracting him. I have to keep him hanging on and the only way to do it is by using the weapons of suspense. There is no other way.

More>>>

(Even) Bad Writing wins national awards

Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest
Named after the Victorian novelist and playwright Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, author of the oft-quoted "It was a dark and stormy night," the tongue-in-cheek competition attracts as many as 10,000 entries in several categories, including detective fiction, Western and romance. Here's a few favorites:

Runner Up in Detective Fiction by Tony Alfieri of Los Angeles:
"The dame sauntered silently into Rocco's office, but she didn't need to speak; the blood-soaked gown hugging her ample curves said it all: "I am a shipping heiress whose second husband was just murdered by Albanian assassins trying to blackmail me for my rare opal collection," or maybe, "Do you know a good dry cleaner?"

Winner of Romance Fiction Jeanne Villa won in 2008 (so good, er - I mean "bad" I had to post it here) with this inspired opening:
"Bill swore the affair had ended, but Louise knew he was lying, after discovering Tupperware containers under the seat of his car, which were not the off-brand containers that she bought to save money, but authentic, burpable, lidded Tupperware; and she knew he would see that woman again, because unlike the flimsy, fake containers that should always be recycled responsibly, real Tupperware must be returned to its rightful owner."


2009 Winner in Fantasy Fiction: "A quest is not to be undertaken lightly--or at all!--pondered Hlothgar, Thrag of the Western Boglands, son of Glothar, nephew of Garthol, known far and wide as Skull Dunker, as he wielded his chesty stallion Hralgoth through the ever-darkening Thlargwood, beyond which, if he survived its horrors and if Hroglath the royal spittle reader spoke true, his destiny awaited--all this though his years numbered but fourteen.

Gives unpublished writers everywhere hope.

More>>>
For a list of winners in other categories>>>

Eyebrow-raiser: HarperTeen edition of 'Wuthering Heights'

(reprinted from Chicago Tribune blogs)
An insult to teen intelligence or shameless grasp of Twilight coattails?

Name: Heathcliff
Sex: Male
Hometown: Yorkshire
Relationship status: It’s Complicated
Interested in: Women
Looking for: A Relationship

That’s one of the “extras” in the new HarperTeen edition of Wuthering Heights which boasts “Bella & Edward’s Favorite Book” on the cover.

At least Emily Bronte didn’t get the same dumb-down as Shakespeare. Guess words that have withstood the test of time don’t have a chance against relentless dumb-down.

On the same star-crossed lovers theme, the new Romeo & Juliet features a hip retelling – and it reminded me more of bad version of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones than anything else.

Any other candidates for Facebookization?

Literary Prizes for Humanitarian Causes

Books that address the topic of contemporary slavery were among the honorees of the 2009 Dayton Literary Peace Prize, whose winners were announced on Tuesday. The selection committee for the prize, which recognizes “the power of literature to promote peace and nonviolence,” said in a news release that its nonfiction prize would go to “A Crime So Monstrous: Face to Face With Modern Day Slavery,” by E. Benjamin Skinner, and that its fiction prize would go to “Peace,” a World War II novel by Richard Bausch. Both prizes come with an award of $10,000; the committee said that Mr. Skinner is donating his honorarium to Free the Slaves, the American wing of Anti-Slavery International.

The committee said that it had chosen “Hot, Flat and Crowded,” by Thomas L. Friedman, a columnist for The New York Times, as the runner-up in its nonfiction category, and “Say You’re One of Them,” a short story collection by Uwem Akpan, as its fiction runner-up. The collection by Mr. Akpan, a Nigerian Jesuit priest, was also recently chosen by Oprah Winfrey for her book club.

Traveling to London, Rome, or Paris and want to find a great bookstore there?

(reprinted from the L.A. Times)
For those who could fritter away hours in a good travel bookstore, there are compelling options in European capitals, starting with Stanfords in Britain.

The London flagship, which claims to have the world’s largest array of travel books and maps, may be the oldest specialty travel shop. Founded in 1853, it was mentioned in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes tale “The Hound of the Baskervilles.”

Since 1901, Stanfords has made its home among the theaters of Covent Garden, where along with books and maps, you can buy flags of the world’s nations (not to mention the skull and crossbones for aspiring pirates).

The best-kept secret for travel lovers in the City of Light is Librarie Ulysse (pictured above), which has a collection of 20,000 new and used books, maps and periodicals in a narrow cupboard of a shop on the romantic Ile St. Louis. Owner Catherine Domain is a member of the Societe des Explorateurs Francais—a good thing since you have to be an explorer to find things in this marvelous old curiosity shoppe of a travel bookstore.

Finally, Rome has its own travel book treasury, the Libreria del Viaggiatore on a winding street near the Campo de’ Fiori. It’s a tiny shop but packed with items of interest to travelers, including guidebooks, maps, cookbooks and travel-related fiction in a multitude of languages. It’s at via del Pellegrino, 78, 39 06 68801048; open 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday; 10 am. to 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; no website.

—Susan Spano, Los Angeles Times staff writer

Google and a Retailer near you can now print books on demand

Google to reincarnate digital books as paperbacks:

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Google Inc. is giving 2 million books in its digital library a chance to be reincarnated as paperbacks.

As part of a deal announced Thursday, Google is opening up part of its index to the maker of a high-speed publishing machine that can manufacture a paperback-bound book of about 300 pages in under five minutes. The new service is an acknowledgment by the Internet search leader that not everyone wants their books served up on a computer or an electronic reader like those made by Amazon.com Inc. and Sony Inc.

The "Espresso Book Machine" has been around for several years already, but it figures to become a hotter commodity now that it has access to so many books scanned from some of the world's largest libraries. And On Demand Books, the Espresso's maker, potentially could get access to even more hard-to-find books if Google wins court approval of a class-action settlement giving it the right to sell out-of-print books.
More at the Washington Post article>>>

Libraries across America celebrate "Banned Books Week" Sept 26 - Oct 3, 2009: How many have you read?

In honor of Banned Books Week next week, a celebration of the intellectual freedom of the written word by the American Library Association, we've pulled together the list of top 100 classic novels of the 20th Century, according to the Radcliffe Publishing Course. Many of these have been challenged for sexual content or language by conservative school districts wishing to restrict reading lists of "required" books from English classes in schools or by city or state governments for various other reasons. Some were burned due to "subversive" content by Nazi's during WWII. The ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom records at least 42 on the list (in bold below) have been the target of ban attempts.
More on why these books have been the subject of censorship at the
Amer. Library Assn. website
1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
7. Beloved by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
9. 1984 by George Orwell
10. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
11. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov
12. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
13. Charlotte's Web by E. B. White
14. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
15. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
16. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
17. Animal Farm by George Orwell
18. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
19. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
20. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
21. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
22. Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne
23. Their Eyes are Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
24. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
25. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
26. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
27. Native Son by Richard Wright
28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
29. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
30. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
31. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
32. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
33. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
34. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
35. Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
36. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
37. The World According to Garp by John Irving
38. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
39. A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
40. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
41. Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally
42. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
43. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
44. Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
45. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
46. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
47. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
48. Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
49. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
50. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
51. My Antonia by Willa Cather
52. Howards End by E. M. Forster
53. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
54. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
55. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
56. Jazz by Toni Morrison
57. Sophie's Choice by William Styron
58. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
59. A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
60. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
61. A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor
62. Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
63. Orlando by Virginia Woolf
64. Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
65. Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
66. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
67. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
68. Light in August by William Faulkner
69. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
70. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
71. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
72. A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
73. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
74. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
75. Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
76. Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
77. In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway
78. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
79. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
80. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
81. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
82. White Noise by Don DeLillo
83. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
84. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
85. The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
86. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
87. The Bostonians by Henry James
88. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
89. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
90. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
91. This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
92. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
93. The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
94. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
95. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
96. The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
97. Rabbit, Run by John Updike
98. Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forster
99. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
100. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Think you love books "too much" ? Here's one for you.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much
by Allison Hoover Barlett
If you're interested in book collecting, detective stories, or just a good read, check out this non-fiction - but decidedly, not dry - tome delving into the book collection world. Here's a few reviews:

"John Gilkey wanted to own a rich-man's library in the worst way, and was soon acquiring expensive first editions in the very worst way of all: theft. Allison Hoover Bartlett's "The Man Who Loved Books Too Much" is the enthralling account of a gently mad con artist and his fraudulent credit-card scams, but it's also a meditation on the urge to collect and a terrific introduction to the close-knit, swashbuckling world of antiquarian book dealers."
-Michael Dirda, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and author of Classics for Pleasure and the memoir An Open Book

"Allison Hoover Bartlett has written a meticulous and fascinating book about a serial bookthief and the persistent sleuth who dogged him for years and finally caught him. It will be especially gripping for those of us who trade in antiquarian books, who owe much to Ken Sanders's persistence. A fine read."
-Larry McMurtry, bestselling author of Books: A Memoir and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove

"With its brilliantly observed details, wry humor, and thrilling plot twists, Bartlett's narrative drew me deep into the obsessive world of a book thief and the dealer determined to stop him. It's a captivating cat-and-mouse game and a fascinating exploration of why people are so passionate about books. If you liked The Orchid Thief, you're going to love The Man Who Loved Books Too Much."
-Julia Flynn Siler, author of The House of Mondavi

Is James Patterson worth $150 million?

From Forbes Magazine:

When Hachette Book Group announced a landmark deal with author James Patterson on Tuesday, the numbers were stunning. It calls for him to churn out 17 books through 2012, 11 for adult readers and six for young adult readers. A source familiar with the terms estimates it to be worth at least $150 million to Patterson.

Patterson's not a writer. He's a fiction (and non-fiction) factory. In 2008 he authored or co-authored seven books and in his 33-year career as a published author he's written 57. He sells an average of 20 million books per year. An estimated 170 million copies of his novels are in print worldwide. Most important: During the last two years he's earned Hachette an estimated $500 million. According to Forbes estimates, Patterson took home $60 in the last year million for the effort.
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